


Comprehension

by SerialKillerQueen



Series: Eldritch [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate take on the Mind Flayer's form in season 3 and it's leaking blood all over the gaff, Billy Hargrove (Mentioned) - Freeform, Body Horror, But instead of getting on the bus Max and El hang out outside, Canon Rewrite, Eleven is an angel, Empathy, Fix-It, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Not literally, Set during Chapter 2 'Mall Rats', Telepathy, do not copy to another site, unbeta'd we die like mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 20:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20533754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerialKillerQueen/pseuds/SerialKillerQueen
Summary: Can understanding go both ways?Sequel to Empathy!





	Comprehension

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dropout_ninja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dropout_ninja/gifts).

> This likely won't make sense unless you've read the previous fic!  
Stranger Things and its characters do not belong to me. All rights go to their respective owners.

El enjoys sitting in the sun after eating ice cream, she's glad Max suggested it, she always enjoys learning new things.

She doesn't enjoy it when she feels Max stiffen beside her abruptly, turns to her to ask what's wrong and sees a look of fear on her face.

"Max?"

"What-what is that?"

She follows Max's eyes and sees... something? A thing? It looks like a man but _wrong_ with black all over it, black eyes, black blood? His (its?) feet are bare and leaving black foot prints on the ground.

And he's walking toward them, toward _Max._ And she stands up and pushes Max behind her. El is still learning, but she doesn't need to be taught that something is wrong here.

She holds her hand out but -

But there's something _reaching_ inside her head, not forcing, reaching.

It feels desperate, it feels angry, it feels... like she did.

It feels like she did in the lab, trapped, frustrated. 

It feels like she did in Jim's cabin, when she was free for just a little bit and then trapped all over again. 

He's standing in front of them now, blackness running out of his eyes, he towers over them, Max is breathing shakily behind her but her voice is firm.

"El? El what do we do?"

She acts before she thinks, this feels familiar, the Mind Flayer, the one who hurt Will, who she let in.

But it doesn't feel the same, and she wants... she wants to understand.

Slowly she reaches forward and takes its hand in her own, meeting those black _black_ eyes.

It is lost, she can see now. It woke up and was lost and was alone and _feeling_ things it doesn't understand.

She's surprised when she sees a face she recognizes, Max's brother, she's only seen him once or twice but she knows it's him. She knows it was going to take him away like it did Will but decided not to. He has a bad papa. It understands him. She understands him. She understands it.

It wants to go home. She can help it go home.

**Author's Note:**

> El is here to save the day! Also seriously MF don't go wandering to the mall looking like you do, someone's gonna get traumatized (shout out to dropout_ninja, our convo inspired most of this) luckily he's on the outside and like... off to the side.  
  
El switching from thinking of MF as 'he' to 'it' was intentional and El grabbing MF’s hand is absolutely a reference to her grabbing flayed!Billy’s hand.  
  
Man the POV FOUGHT with me. At first it was gonna be MF's POV, then MF but switching to El about half way through, then El's, then a few sentences of MF's then El's, then it decided to just be El's. I was writing a bit of an intro just to make it clear why MF was here and what it was feeling. (It went there looking for the gate. Then it'd see El and feel a sense of anger because of her shutting the gate, then mostly just be exhausted and know she could help it and prioritizing that, and then wanting to telepathically reach for her since she's different to all other humans and it's struggling being a singular entity, when it's designed for connection. That is all still canon to this, just not shown here). But when I went to write those few sentences my entire brain was like "nah son" and I just couldn't, it was not flowing at all.
> 
> (MF's human form looks like The Kid from Castle Rock (by Hulu) with more black veins and black eyes!)  



End file.
